After
temporary inactivation Nov.7, 1945, the Triple
Nickel came back to life Jan.8, 1964, as the 555th Tactical Fighter
Squadron at MacDill AFB, Florida. It was the first operational squadron
in the Air Force to fly the McDonnell Douglas F-4C Phantom II. The Triple
Nickel then deployed to Okinawa, Japan, and became a permanent unit
there in late 1965, under the 12th Tactical Fighter Wing.

The squadron returned
to combat from Udorn RTAFB, Thailand, scoring its first two aerial victories
April 23, 1966. One week later, the Nickel gained the distinction of
being the first "Ace" squadron in Southeast Asia with six
kills.

At this time the
Squadron wear the tail-code FY.

In June 1966, the
555th TFS moved to Ubon RTAFB joining the
8th Tactical Fighter Wing "Wolfpack". While stationed in Ubon,
the Triple Nickel downed an additional 13 aircraft including four MiG-21s
Jan.2, 1967. The Nickel was now the only
"Quad ace" fighter squadron in this operational theatre, with
twenty MiGs to its credit. Four months later the Triple Nickel became
the first squadron in Southeast Asia to convert to F-4D.

Ubon
Royal Thai Air Force Base
Ubon Ratchatani, Thailand

OPERATION
"BOLO"

During
the last months of 1966 the MiG-21s of the VPAF (deployed in the 921st
Fighter Regiment) became very active and succesful in the mission to
intercept the F-105 formations of the USAF. In their own figures, the
921st FR shot down nine Thunderchiefs in December 1966; particularly,
the MiG-21 pilots claimed two F-105s downed on December 5, and three
more on December 14. There is no statistics of losses in aerial combats
from USAF regarding that period, but its records of POW/MIA/KIA show
at least one F-105 lost in each December 5 and December 8.

Letting aside how
many of the VPAF claims are admitted by USAF, certainly the amount of
American planes lost due to the MiGs became worrying, because the USAF
decided to make an important effort to neutralize the MiG threat: the
effort was known as Operation Bolo

Four
VPAF pilots walk towards their MiG-21s in Noi Bai airbase. These fighters,
armed with heat-seeking missiles R-3, became a serious threat for the
F-105 formations in the last months of 1966, and the neutralization of
them was the main goal of “Bolo”.

The
idea and planning of such operation was the master piece of a living
legend among the US F-4 pilots in South East Asia: Colonel Robin Olds.
He was a P-38/P-51 Ace during the WWII, being credited with 12 kills
against the German Luftwaffe in 1944-45, and now he was 44 years
old- was assigned as de CO of the 8th TFW (nickname: The Wolf
Pack). He was an old-fashion fighter pilot, implulsive
and rough, and he liked to drink; but he was also a natural leader and
an intuitive tactics creator.

He realized that
the F-105 and F-4 formations used the same incoming ways time after
time, and the SIGINT analists of Hanoi became experts in identify the
first ones from the others because the use of the same radio-frequencies
and callsigns. So, he decided to fly a huge F-4 formation using the
same routes, altitude and callsigns than the F-105s, hoping that the
MiG-21s would be guided towards them expecting to find out Thunderchiefs,
and when they realized the truth, it would be too late.

Bolo
begins

The D-Day of Bolo
was January 2 1967. In the first hours of the evening 14 flights of
F-4C Phantom belonging to the 8th TFW (with 4 aircraft each) took off
from Ubon RTAFB in Thailand towards the VPAF airfields around Hanoi,
pretending to be F-105s. An eastern force of F-4s belonging to
the 366th TFW- would cover the possible MiG withdrawing routes. Olds
commanded the first flight, callsign Olds (another nickname
would be unappropiate!) and despite his long combat experience, he most
likely thougth: Would work the bait?.

The doubts dissapeared
soon, because the pilots of the MiG-21s seemed to be paralyzed when
they realized that they were not engaging F-105s, but F-4s. The first
kill of that day was scored by Olds 02 -1st Lt. Ralph Wetterhahn-
followed seconds later by the Captain Walter Radeker, who claimed to
shot down another MiG-21. Initially Colonel Olds was not so lucky, as
his own account shows

The battle
started when the MiGs began to get out of the cloud cover. Unfortunatelly
to myself, the first one appeared in my six oclock.
I think it was more a casuality than a precise tactic. As a matter of
fact, during the next minutes other many MiGs started to exit from the
clouds from different positions.

I was
lucky. The flight behind me saw the MiG and tried to divert its attention.
I broke to the left, sharply enough to get away of his line of fire,
hoping that my wingmans take care of him. Meanwhile another MiG get
out of the clouds, doing an wide turn about my 11 oclock
at a distance of 2,000 yards. He goes to get into the clouds again and
I tried to follow him.

Olds fired two
Sparrows and one Sidewinder against this MiG, but the enemy pilot showed
his quality avoiding all the three missiles and entering in the clouds
(escaping away of the Wolf Pack leader). Until that moment,
the Luck was no entirely at his side, he was under attack of a MiG-21,
and one of his possible preys escaped away from him. But that would
change soon:

[ ]
a third enemy plane appeared in my 10 oclock, from
the left to the right: in simple words, almost in opposing direction.
The first MiG went away and I engaged the afterburner in an attempt
to put myself in an attack position against this new enemy. I reared
up my aircraft in an 45 degrees angle, inside his turn. He was turning
to the left, so I pulled the stick and rolled to the right. That is:
I performed a barrel roll.

Thanks
to such maneuver, I found myself above him, half upside down, and I
hold it until the MiG finished his turn, calculating the time in a way
that, if I could keep on turning behind him, I would place on his tail,
in an delection angle of 20 degrees, at a distance of 1,350 or 1,500
yards. That was exactly what happened. Sincerely, I thought he didnt
even see me. I found myself behind and lower than him. I could clearly
see his silhoutte against the sun when I launched two Sidewinders against
him, one of them made impact and teared out the right wing.

In a few minutes,
the pilots of the Olds flight claimed to shot down three
MiG-21s without suffering losses, and started to withdraw of the aerial
battlefield. So, the first round ended with a clear American victory,
and the second one would begin soon

The Ford
flight arrives

The next flight
callsign Ford- was arriving to the area and also engaged
the MiG-21s. The flights leader, Colonel Chappie James, did not
scored any kill, but he witnessed the victory of Captain Everett T.
Raspberry. The following is his personal account of the engagement:

At 15:04
my flight was attacked by three MiGs, two from the 10 o´clock
and one from the ´6 oclock´. Initially I didnt
see this last one because I had been concentrated in the attack of the
ones approaching head-on. My RIO warned me, excited, about this
rapidly approaching MiG, which was at fire distance of my #3 and #4.
I hesitated a while before to interrupt my attack against the two frontal
MiGs, because I had seen the Olds flight passing below us
a few seconds before and I thought that the plane seen by my RIO could
be one of them. Despite that, I changed rapidly my turn to the left
by another sudden one to the right and I find out the third MiG. I ordered
to my wingmans 03 and 04 to break to the right. But when they did it,
the MiG broke to the left for some misterious reason and during an split
of second we both were side by side. We were so close that, besides
the red stars in his wings, I could clearly see the pilots face.

I began an horizontal
barrel roll to separate away of him and to place myself in an attack
position, and I launched a Sidewinder. The missile missed because the
MiG suddenly broke to left at full throttle, but when he did it, he
put himself in the line of fire of my wingman 02, Captain Everett T.
Raspberry. I ordered him tofollow the prey, because meanwhile the two
aircraft that I initially saw had been placed in my forward sector.
I was in an advantageous position, so I fired two AIM-9s against them
in a quick sequence, and I turned to place myself as wingman of my #2,
Captain Raspberry.

[ ] I kept
on descending besides Captain Raspberry and I remember that I thought
that he was still out of the optimal launching envelope. But he performed
a barrel roll that placed himself in a perfect position again and he
launched an AIM-9 which hit against the tail section of the MiG-21.
It was shaken violently and later fell in a slow,

Even
when the flight Ford scored only one kill, again there was
no US losses in air combat, and the score of the day was 4:0 until that
moment. Everything was ready for the third round of the fight.

Last Round

The Rambler
flight also find out several MiGs in the area: the leader, Captain John
B. Stone, saw two MiG-21s ahead and below and dived towards them, destroying
one MiG with two AIM-7 Sparrows. Almost immediately after scoring that
kill, Stone was attacked by a third MiG-21, but in a join maneuver with
Rambler 02 he could put the MiG in line of fire of Philip
P. Combies (Rambler 04). He saw the battle that way:

We flew
at 13,440 feet 4.800 meters- over the sea level and our speed
was 540 knots. A little bit after to complete a turn to the northwest,
we identified a patrol of four MiG-21s in spread formation at a distance
of 4 to 6 miles about 6 to 10 kms- at 2 o´clock
and lower than us. Two more MiGs appeared 2 miles about 3 kms-
behind.

[ ] When
the MiGs crossed in front of Stone, he started to follow them, breaking
to the left and lossing height. Due to that, the flight spreaded wide
to the right, and I found myself higher and rather to the right than
the others. I kept the throttle to the minimum during the first phase
of the combat. So, the MiGs broke to the left, and the engagement began.

I choose one of
the MiGs and I followed him with my radar. I think that we didnt
exceed the 4 g in any moment during the whole engagement. I decided
to use the tactic of the Navy pilots, who in the combat at close range
dont use the radar tracking to look thru the reticle. When I realized
that I was in the right position, I pushed the fire button, I released
it, I pushed it again and waited. I did not even see the first Sparrow.

However, I followed
the entire trajectory of the second one, since the launching until the
impact. We were at less of 2,000 yards of the MiGs tail,
height 9,800 feet 3.500 meters- and turning to the left when I
fired the missiles. The second one reached the tail section of the enemy
aircraft. A second later I saw a huge, orange ball of fire.

Seconds later,
another MiG-21 crossed the line of fire of the F-4C Phantom Rambler
02 and was apparently destroyed by one out of wo Sparows fired
by its pilot, Lawrence Glynn. That became the third MiG-21 downed by
Rambler flight, raising the final score of the day to 7:0
in favor of the American pilots. Certainly the Operation Bolo
had an succesful beginning.

Colonel
Chappie James was the leader of “Ford” flight on January 2 1967. After
the war he was the first USAF General of black race in the History.

Ground
personnel prepares some Sparrows to be loaded in the F-4C Phantoms of
8th TFW. During the engagements of January 2 1967, despite many of them
missed their targets –something common at that time- three out of the
seven MiG-21 claimed that day by the Phantom pilots were shot down by
this type of missile.

However,
it must be noted that not all the American claims are officially admitted
by the Vietnamese sources; the VPAF admitts five MiG-21s lost that day,
plus a sixth one whose pilot was forced to eject due to he ran out of
fuel (the reason is not mentioned by VPAF sources, but it is likely
that such reason could be combat damage caused by an US air-to-air missile
to the fuel tanks of the MiG). But even those sources admitt that the
Americans clearly won in the air combats that day.

The magnitude of
the Vietnamese defeat can be seen in the fact that, excluding another
air battle on January 6 (when two more MiG-21s were downed by F-4Cs
of the 555th TFS of the 8th TFW) the MiG force did not even try to engage
the US fighters and fighter-bombers during January, February and the
first half of March 1967

Colonel
Robin Olds –CO of the 8th TFW- was the master mind behind the Operation
“Bolo”. And he was also an outstanding executer: in the very first day
of the operation (January 2 1967) he personally shot down one MiG-21 with
two AIM-9s while flying an F-4C Phantom. During Vietnam he was credited
with 4 kills, only one kill short to became a “Double Ace” (he already
was an WWII Ace with 12 victories).

SA-2
Surface-to-Air Missile on the ramp.

A
typical North Vietnamese SA-2 SAM-site; a pentagon with 5 missiles and
a "FAN-SONG" RADAR in the middle of it to guide the missiles to their
target..